One Choice, New Lives
by DuskDawnAndFate
Summary: Sometimes a mother can do something when pushed too hard. A single decision by one person with one family in one town in one world will change everything. All because she hates one man and wants to destroy everything he wants and holds dear. Slytherin will rise from the ashes and reach for the stars.
1. Chapter 1

**It's been a while since I have written anything. I had an old account and well, wanted to have a new start with writing here. So, here we go, let's have a new story with a new profile. Let's go ahead and have a story that has been swirling in my mind for around a year or so.**

 **I don't own the series, if I did, I would have millions of dollars and turned Big Ben into a Rocket to take me to my Lunar Base.**

 **...**

Something inside of Julianna Gaunt broke a long time ago when she had married her cousin Marvolo Gaunt. It only became more fractured as she had to lay and carry his son, Morfin and came to a crescendo when she gave birth to their daughter, Merope.

Had she been even more fractured and downtrodden, she wouldn't have done anything when he said those words. Had she been beaten more and pushed down more, she wouldn't have objected to the plan.

But there was a small glimmer inside of her... A glimmer inside of Julianna that refused to bend, refused to break. A glimmer that refused to break and allow anything else to happen, the glimmer that made her make a single choice that would change everything from this point on.

Julianna murdered Marvolo Gaunt in the wee hours of the morning of Halloween, only hours after Merope was born. She had been weak, she hadn't her wand or much focus, but when Marvolo told her those words, something snapped.

He told her that since she gave him a boy and a girl, there was no need for a marriage deal with another family. Their family would stay pure.

She snapped.

The ferocity and protectiveness of a mother forced her body to react, a wandless and wordless Avada sent at him in a moment was all that happened. Her choice was made in a split second, but it was one she didn't regret. She blearily blinked, one moment she had been staring hatefully at him then the next, he was...

Julianna did not cry, she always knew in the darkest parts of her mind and body that she hated Marvolo. Now, she wanted to destroy not just him, but everything he loved. And what did he love?

His oh so "pure" blood line.

She will destroy it, she will raise her children to be honest, hard working people. She will not fill their heads with stories of how pure and wonderful they are for being Slyhterin's heirs, she will humble them, she will make them see reason, she will make them hate and destroy everything her damn cousin and family treasured so dearly!

...

She had forced herself to get up only days after the birth, strapping her newborn daughter to her back and having her three year old son to stay in the house and clean. She knew the body was beginning to stink and having that thing in the house would get her children sick.

Not having enough magic in her yet to levitate the body, she dragged the thing into the nearby forest during the night and found the deepest parts of a river. She rolled the body closer to the river, eventually kicking it in and allowing it to either float or sink, she didn't care. All the while, she had brought out a basket of liquor bottles, depositing them along the path, doing her best to make this all look like an accident.

She always did hate liquor. It was so expensive and for what? A bottle the size of her forearm with only so much liquid inside? To get piss drunk with enough for what? A day? She could have used that money to replace the drapes, get a new quilt, maybe some shoes for Morfin? But no, Marvolo had to have his damn drinks so he could spew about their damn lineage and feel oh so superior in their hovel of a cottage on land that was only half the size of what it used to be.

She started to laugh to herself, finding the whole situation hilarious! How funny it is that he's floating in the river now, to be picked up later and classified forever as a waterlogged drunk!

"Where did your superior blood get you, Marvolo!?" She would scream out to the sky in the forest that day, laughter bubbling to the surface, a wide grin across her face. "It got you nowhere! No where! Nooooooooooo where!"

She would glide home, murmuring to herself, sometimes laughing in bouts as she would curse his name, curse everything he ever wanted, cursing everything he held dear.

"You're just a damn log, a log floating in the water. I don't see a pure wizard! I see a dead man! Dead, dead, dead man!" Another giggle as she got closer to home.

What to do now? She had herself, a wand, her children and land. They made money by selling her vegetables in town, but most of that money went to his damn drinks... But maybe now she could save more, use it better. He wanted to sell more land to the thrice damned Riddles so he could have massive amounts of drink, but no... No, no.

No, that isn't what she wanted to do.

She's on rock bottom, the lowest any pureblood family could fall. There was nowhere else she could go with the Gaunt name.

Nowhere else but up.

And that is exactly what she is going to do.


	2. Chapter 2

One of the first things Julianna did when she got home was take stock of everything in the home. Mad or not, she was going to plan everything out and take care of her home.

Not his, hers now.

Since the land that is kept to them is still sizeable, she will be able to use most of it to till and plant more crops. Since he won't waste time with Morfin and telling him stories about how glorious and shiny and wonderful Slytherin is, she can go and have Morfin help out in the fields. He can only do so much, which is why she will make him into a humble and strong man of the house.

And that is exactly what she would do. Over the next few years, Julianna would spend time and effort to expand her garden into a full field of crops, ranging from anything she could get her hands on to anything that would be profitable.

Sowing the seeds of crops and sowing the seeds of doubt in the minds of her children.

"Your father was a drunk, Morfin. Our family isn't great and respected, but we will earn it through hard work."

"The people in town look at us like we are rats, rats who aren't wanted. No one wants us here, no one wants us out there. We must look after ourselves, dear children."

She told them they are children of the line of Slytherin, of course. Why forget your roots? Oh, but she isn't going to glorify their family, no no. No, that would be bad... very bad.

"We are the last descendants of Lord Slytherin, children. Our family was so very ignorant and proud, so bad we were that now we live in squalor. And why do we live in squalor? Because we never grew with the rest of society. Our ancestors are ignorant and want only pure blood, but what has pure blood done for us? Nothing. Nothing at all."

Pure blood. Yes, yes that oh so lovely she could feel her heart burst from excitement of a topic. Wonderful. Pure blood, pure blood, pure blood!

She hates those words so much, not as much as half bloods and mud bloods, but oh, she hates pure bloods so much more. Marvolo adored and wanted his family to stay pure and good and pure and good and pure AND GOOD!

She hates him so much, she will lead her children to taint their blood, their children will be half bloods and soil the pure line of Slytherin, all because she hates him. She hates muggles and mud bloods so much, but she hates Marvolo so much more. He deserves to have everything he loves be destroyed, yes, yes.

So she sent Morfin to school in Little Hangleton, stretched her earnings and savings to allow him the chance to go and be with the children in town and learn from muggles. Already this was a win for her, she listened to Marvolo drone on and on about how beneath them the muggles were-

Well, they are, but how funny this is now! Their eldest son is being taught by muggles how to read and write! He's not so good at it, but she wants him to get better.

How funny, funny, funny, funny it is! The little muggles are around her children! The oh so insignificant and dirty muggles are near and touching her children and teaching them muggles things!

After the first day of Morfin at school, she dancing in the bank of the river, cursing the name of her hated cousin.

Ah, but a problem did come in...

"Why can't I speak like a snake, mama?" Morfin would ask her when he got home from school. He only had the barest of supplies for his learning, she had to pull favors and services to allow her son into school, things she isn't proud of, but made her gleeful at how dirty she got from the muggles...

"Because the muggles can't speak it, hunny." She would reply to him, chidingly. "And don't you go and speak snake to other wizards, Can't have others wanting to take you away." She would add with a grin to herself.

Morfin would go pale and go back to his homework, his face scrunching up as he tried to comprehend the words before him.

He would tell her that it was hard to read and write, the words and letters would be moving and twisting and turning and changing shape. It took him an hour to read a passage and even then he couldn't remember it. Too much time and effort to decode than to listen and comprehend.

Maybe this is another effect of the inbreeding, she would wonder to herself. Maybe this is what happens to people if they marry their cousins and stay pure for too long? And here she thought that her and her children would just be ugly.

Faces just slightly too wide, noses just slightly too big or upturned, foreheads a bit too big...

Looking at her son, he did look a lot like one of those little gorillas in the books her son brought from school. And her? She looked like a gorilla too withe too wide shoulders, too wife a face, too small of eyes and too much of an underbite. Merope was too thin and had eyes much too big and wide for her face, too narrow a nose and just too small a mouth for her face.

So ugly, she would think, more like freaks when compared to the dirty muggles. Not like the Riddles, with their aristocratic looks and their perfect faces and their perfect hair and their perfect everything.

No, she will make their family great, she will make them powerful, she will make them rise from the ashes and accept their place in not just muffle society but wizard society as well. And that will only be after they have worked hard enough, after they have saved enough and after they have been dirtied enough.

 **...**

Over the next few years, Julianna would expand her fields more and more, eventually saving enough to start keeping livestock on the land. Most of the hard work was for her to do, not until Morfin and Merope were old enough to really start helping along with the farm.

They happily welcomed their first cow onto their far when Morfin was seven years old and Merope was four. They named her Miss Daisy and it was their job to feed her, brush her and milk her. Miss Daisy started to bring in more profit for their farm, the fresh milk always seemed to taste sweeter and felt more filling from their cow than any other cow in the area.

She would smile and say it was a special type of food they gave Miss Daisy that made her milk so sweet. A mixture of grass, flowers and a special crop they only grow on the Gaunt farm.

Who knew that some Valerian root crushed into the feed would help so much?

 **...**

When she finally had enough money, Julianna decided to take the children onto the Knight Carriage and show them Diagon Alley in London.

She was giddy, Marvolo hated anything to do with the wizarding world, since it was filled with filthy mud bloods and filthy half bloods. He always ranted about how they couldn't go anywhere, or else their pure blood could be tainted.

WELL LET'S GO AND WALLOW IN THE FILTH THAT THE MUD BLOODS BRING IN!

Needing to be shown how to enter the Alley, the Gaunts could finally see the world that Marvolo wanted to keep from them.

Oh, how beautiful and wondrous this place was! So cramped with buildings and shops and sounds and smells and oh! It was so nice to come here on such a nice August afternoon.

Julianna led her children to Gringotts, knowing the place must have something left in the near empty vaults of their family...

Not much, but it would do. Inside one vault was a small sack of Sickles and Galleons, the last bit of the fortunes of Slytherin. What good was it to have such a large and vast vault at the bottom of the complex if it only housed one sack of coin?

"Look children, this is what happens when you sit and around and do nothing for generations. Our family squandered everything and for what?" She would leave the hook, waiting for her two children to chime together.

"Nothing mother," they would finish for her. "Absolutely nothing."

It made her shiver with pleasure at hearing this.


End file.
